


I give you my word(s)

by songsaboutdrowning



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 06:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songsaboutdrowning/pseuds/songsaboutdrowning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My (very late) response to the Daisy Lowe shenanigans. Set in an unspecified present where Florence and Isa are no longer together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I give you my word(s)

**Author's Note:**

> I will never be completely happy with this. I have been rewriting it for like two weeks and it’s still not getting any better. I have now had three different people look at it (heartfelt thanks to Pip, Kate and Loran) and yet I still feel there are some bits in it that only make sense to me. So here. Have some angst, and make of that what you will.

It started with one picture. Another soon followed. It found its way to Isa the way things on the Internet do. You don’t want to see them, but they’re there and you can’t escape. It didn’t bother her that it was Daisy – Daisy was a mutual friend. It was just the knowledge that some day, this would happen again, and that time, it wouldn’t be a joke. It would be for real and she would have no rebuttal.

For now, she responded with a picture of her own and she wondered if it would shock and hurt and tear Florence apart more, because it was a guy. It didn’t matter that you could see his boxers, that it was more than clear nothing had happened – Florence’s picture was much more explicit, in that respect. All that mattered was that Isa wanted the idea to snake itself into Florence’s head that she wasn’t going to be safe forever.

One day, Florence would be asked,  _What is the messiest breakup you’ve ever had?_ , and she’d say, “I don’t know if I would call it messy if you still love each other but… stuff… just gets in the way.” Isa would be asked, too - but never by a magazine or anything official; more like, by a drunken friend after too many gins - and she would remain silent.

They decided together, after all. They decided that  _together_  didn’t work on two different continents.  _Together_  didn’t work with Florence wanting stability and Isa telling her she was trying to settle too soon, too young.  _Together_  didn’t work when Florence could see that Isa, at 32, still lived like she was 10 years younger, and maybe she would never want to live any differently at all.

The silence had stretched from London to LA like a cloud. Rob had noticed that Isa didn’t spend hours on Facetime any more, but no one noticed anything about Florence. She was always edgy, anyway. Always deep in thought and always looking like something was bothering her even at the happiest of times. But above all, she lived on her own now, and she wasn’t under constant scrutiny any more.

Except when someone or something finally scrutinised her and pried her out of her nervous silence, it was a camera lens.

Daisy was not the problem. That almost-kiss didn’t hurt. It was the idea that one day there would be a real kiss with someone, not an almost-one, and Isa would not be the person on the receiving end of it.

Her own picture was a reaction, mostly. Even though she knew no one would fall for it, least of all Florence. The guy wasn’t even Isa’s type; Florence knew that, and Isa knew she knew. But she did it because she could; it was a warning. She did it because she wanted to play on the surprise effect. Florence wasn’t safe. Unexpectedly, though, Florence had liked the picture, a gesture open to interpretation – a nod to moving on, or her way of saying she could see through Isa’s trick?

It was likely just the beginning. The beginning of a long process of testing the waters, re-establishing boundaries, hurting and twisting and pulling and seeing how far they could go before someone broke.

But there was always going to be a day when they had to rehearse together again.

Back to London, back to occupying the same space again for the first time in months, after they accurately avoided each other and kept their interactions to pictures and “likes”, never words.

* * *

The problem is not that it’s awkward. It’s that it’s  _not_. It’s like no time has passed, like there was never a relationship to mess up; the atmosphere is not tense. Many would find this a blessing, especially when there’s so many other people involved who depend on their professionalism and attitude. Florence just finds it confusing.

Isa remains silent still.

There’s a break at one point, and Florence opens the sliding door onto the small balcony, letting the aircon escape the room, something the boys will undoubtedly berate her for later. But they went down to the shop for beer and crisps and they are not moaning _right now._

She doesn’t know when Isa gets back into the rehearsal room. Florence could have sworn she’d left with everybody else. Isa takes as long as she possibly can crossing the distance to Florence, finding distractions, running her hand over the keys as she walks past her keyboard. They make a dull, plastic sound, that makes it hard to believe harmonies and chords can come out of that same instrument when it’s on.

Eventually she comes to stand just two steps behind Florence and off to the side, and there are many things she could say, many things she could comment on, but she decides to keep it professional.

“Written anything new lately?”

She may be the one that’s six years older and still not settled, but there are times when Isa wants to show that she is the bigger person. There are times when she will display a strength and a serenity that she doesn’t really feel.

Florence used to share her words like it was no big deal, before - like they were a burden and she couldn’t wait to let them fly out and reach another person. Out of context, where they would take on a different meaning, in the eye of the beholder, and she would never have to explain where they came from.

Isa’s seen the dark forest that is Florence’s thoughts. She’s trekked through it as best as she could through years of friendship and working together and loving each other outside of the standard definitions of ‘relationship’, and a lot of the time, she helped Florence escape it. Now, Isa’s the puppet-master who decides what goes on in that dark forest. She doesn’t know she is, and if she knew, she wouldn’t want to be.

If Florence gives her her lyrics right now, Isa will know, and Florence will no longer feel liberated. It will only be a deadweight dragging them further down, again and again and again. The words will be turned into unwitting weapons, and inevitably, someone will get wounded. Maybe they both will.

Florence doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t even realise that her thoughts take up so much space and time that Isa’s been waiting for a response. In her mind, that reasoning only took one second. One second in Florence’s mind translates into several minutes in the real world.

“God, I hope your written vocabulary hasn’t become as bad as your spoken one.”

Isabella sits next to her with a chuckle and lights a cigarette.

Florence’s eyes fly to the notebook resting in her lap. It would be far too overt to pull the elastic band around it, but she does shift her knees just enough to feel the thick paper cover safely trapped between her legs, and with it her precious words and the whole world inside of her.

“I’m just wondering if… maybe… if maybe you shouldn’t be a part of it.”

That’s one of her two options – both equally dreadful. She wants to show Isa, really – she doesn’t have that level of intimacy with anyone else in the world, and in a way, it’s easier: it helps feel like things haven’t changed that much after all. If she goes with cutting Isa out of the creative process, the words will get to her anyway, eventually: in rehearsal, in the studio, in post-production. They’ll find their way, just like the picture did. And when that happens, will it be more of a shock to Isa? Will she be upset? Will she wish she’d had a say?

“I can’t make you include me. You’ve got to do what’s best for you. I get that.”

She sounds different than she ever has before. It may just be that Florence just missed her voice, but as she tries to conjure things that she’s heard Isa say in the past, it becomes clear to her that usually, whatever Isa’s saying, even if she’s just explaining something technical, there is always a hint of a smile underlying her voice. Can you  _hear_  a smile? Maybe you can’t until it’s gone, and then you can hear its absence. And right now, Florence can definitely feel the absence: Isa sounds different.

Isa takes the cigarette out of her mouth and as a reflex, Florence leans towards it, letting their shoulders touch. A few months ago, there wouldn’t be a problem with taking a drag, but she stops mid-way when she realises Isa had no intention of offering.

Before her brain can compute what she’s saying and stop her, she blurts out, “Ok,  _definitely_ not a part of it now.”

Trying irony is not a good move when things are already so precarious between them. How dare she make something so big sound like a joke? How can she even think that flirting’s ok? It’s built in her, and rooted so deep down that sometimes the instinct to hurt and twist and pull that she  _should_  be feeling is just… not there. Sometimes, time stops, and all that registers is that Isa’s there and everything is absolute.

“Florence Welch, you are not kicking out your longest standing collaborator just because she didn’t share a fag.”

The words paint a completely different picture in Florence’s head. Her mind’s already travelled to a future where Isa is no longer playing with them, and Isa’s joke somehow translates into Florence’s brain as  _Florence Welch, you are not kicking your ex girlfriend out of the band just because she is your ex girlfriend._

That’s her conscience talking. If Isa went, and people noticed – even if Isa simply wasn’t a part of the creative process any more – most people would figure it out. Those who hadn’t already. They might guess that things were no longer the way they used to be with the two of them, even if they didn’t know what  _things_  were like in the first place.

And that’s when she realises that it doesn’t matter who she writes with: she could have an army of collaborators, but Florence knows that Isa will recognise the signals. She will know what most of her lyrics mean - maybe not every word, but the important ones - and even more the silences between the words. The spaces, the commas. Isa will know every single one of them like they came out of her own heart.

Words can destroy people: revelations and confessions – even apologies. In Florence’s line of work, you need to have a way with words, but she never intends her words as a weapon to hurt anyone; sometimes she wishes she could, but she’s incapable of that.

Words are all she has, really. Stripped of her fame, her house, her rooms full of clothes, and even her voice, she’d still have those.

Isa will trace Florence’s words back to real life events, places and feelings and colours and the weather. The spaces and the commas will paint pictures that only Isa can see. It is not a war and the words are not weapons. There are no winners or losers in this. There are two players who are completely equivalent. They have the same shared experience, the same memories – only, one gets to put it into lyrics, the other just gets to listen. There’s no switching roles in this.

They were there when those things happened; they might as well be there when they get written about.

They might as well keep working together.


End file.
